Chanel jacket tutorial 2 - construction

You should now have a pile of neatly quilted pattern pieces, and you might be wondering how to put them all together. It's easier than it looks, although there is quite a lot of handsewing ahead!
The first thing you need to do is pin all the linings well clear of the seam lines. This is why you left a gap between seam lines and quilting when you did the quilting.

The next step is to machine sew the fashion fabric, just as if you were sewing a normal jacket and there was no lining attached. Baste the seamlines along the thread tracings, then sew up the bodice. Don't add the sleeves yet. You will now have something that looks fairly normal from the outside

But looks like a woolly mess on the inside.

To tame the mess and finish the lining, you need to handsew the lining together at each seam. To do this you:
Press the seam open. Trim the fashion fabric seam allowance to about 1.5 cm, the lining seam allowance to 2.5 cm. Pin one layer of the lining along the seamline.

Fold the other layer over the pins and press. The pins leave an indentation on the lining (I found using a thick pressing cloth like a towel helped)

Press the top layer of lining to a sharp fold along the seamline marked by the indentations

Pin the fold to the lower layer of lining along the seamline.

Carefully fellstitch the lining seam closed, just catching the seal allowance of the fashion fabric for stregnth

You can slipstitch if you prefer, I don't see that it makes a great deal of difference.
Remember to stop about 2.5 cm short of any seams you are yet to complete.
Repeat the above for sleeve seams
Set in the sleeves, again only sewing the fashion fabric. You then repeat the steps for the lining with the armscye seam. This might seem more difficult as you are dealing with an armhole rather than a flat seam. I found it easier to work with the jacket on the dress form.

You might be tempted to finish up the front seams, neckline and hem, but don't do this yet! You have buttons and buttonholes to deal with first. Buttons will be next week's entry, then buttonholes and then you can finish things off!